It took a little less than an hour to get there- and probably would have taken even less time if every car that approached hadn’t sent Sallie diving for the bushes until their tail lights were gone. Fortunately there weren’t that many cars about.
Sallie knew better than to ride her bike up to the main entrance- that sort of boldness only worked in broad daylight. Instead she hid it in a ditch about a block away and made her way around the back side. There were plenty of lights, which was both good and bad- bad because it made her easier to see, but good because it meant she could see, and moreover they cast some pretty strong shadows for her to crouch in.
This portion of the fence was made of extremely tall chain-link, something Sallie had prepared for. A moment’s digging in her pack produced a heavy pair of wire-cutters, and she went to work in one particularly dark area. It took longer than she’d expected- the people in movies always seemed to clip right through, but Sallie found it was taking all her strength to cut even one piece of metal. She tried to ignore the sensation of time slipping away as she struggled to open enough to let her (fortunately) slender frame slip through. She ended up with a nasty scratch on her arm (torn through her shirt) but counted it well worth it as she caught sight of the lemur cage.
Her heart, apparently having realized that there was no exit through her throat, had instead begun trying to beat its way straight through her chest. It made Sallie feel dizzy, and she told it firmly to calm down- there was no one here, she was not going to get caught, and anyway so what if she did? What would they do to her? A lifetime of being grounded or- or even put in jail- nothing could even begin to compare of a lifetime of knowing she hadn’t even tried to save Zeb.
Thus chastened, her heart settled down to only twice its normal pace, and Sallie continued to creep towards the cage. It didn’t have a light shining on it directly, which was all for the best, because she still hadn’t figured out how she was going to get it open to get her little brother out.
Finally she was there, her face pressed against the bars. The small grey bundle of fur was wheezing quietly in the center, ringed tail once again wrapped around it.
“Pssst,” she whispered. He didn’t respond, so she tried a little louder: “Pssst!” Still nothing- if anything she thought the tail wrapped itself even tighter. It reminded her of the way her brother used to burrow deeper into the covers when he didn’t feel like getting out of bed. “Zebediah Obediah Thoris!” she hissed. “You wake up right now!”
The little lemur lifted its head, looked at her blearily, and let out a confused chirp.
“Zebbie!” she said, reaching her hand through the bars and stretching it as close to him as she could. Her brother (and she knew it was her brother, because there were his blue-gray eyes!) shook himself and stumbled over. He patted her hand, then looked into her face and made the same noise he’d made in her dream:
Pbwit pbwit pbwit!
“I don’t know what that means, but we have to get you out of here!” The lemur nodded, effectively squashing any residual doubt Sallie might have entertained about his identity.
The cage was shaped like a small circus wagon, consisting primarily of dark metal bars and brightly colored, intricately carved wood. One by one Sallie tested the bars, but each was solid- and far too thick for her to file through in any reasonable amount of time (she hadn’t had much hope for that idea, anyway). The curious thing was that there didn’t seem to be any sort of opening anywhere- she’d thought she might unscrew some hinges, or something, but there was no door at all. She wondered briefly if she was strong enough to use the hammer she’d brought to break through the wood, but rejected the idea as being far too loud.
“Well you had to get in there somehow,” she said, exasperated. Zeb, who had been following her circuit with interest (and occasionally shaking a bar himself), let out an excited chirp and leapt onto a large branch that was propped up into a top corner of the cage. He scurried up its length, launched himself to a little platform in the center of the cage, and then stretched up as far as he could while reaching for the ceiling and making tiny noises of lemur frustration. It took Sallie, dazzled by the swift, acrobatic grace of his movements, a moment to realize what he was trying to show her.
“Oh!” she said, and angled her head so she could peer up towards the ceiling. Sure enough, there was a trap door! “Oh brilliant, Zebbie! Now give me a moment to figure out how I’m going to get up there…”
In the end she used a method similar to Zeb’s: she braced her feet against the stout branch and used her arms to inch herself up the bars, inch-worming her way up until she was able to fling her upper torso over the top of the cage. It wasn’t much harder than climbing a tree, but it did leave her a bit winded, and once she was on the roof she took a moment to catch her breath, propping her back against a bit of carved decoration.
Beep!
Her dumb watch again, sounding abnormally as it pointed out that it was now three o’clock. She knew she had to work quickly: Daddy would be getting up at five-thirty to go running, and she couldn’t count on getting home any faster than it had taken her to get here. Sallie started to move towards the trap-door, and then froze as she heard foot-steps approaching the cage. Below her she could here Zebbie dashing in mad circles, probably trying to draw the attention of whoever it was away from the top of his dwelling.
“My my my, aren’t we naughty? Up past our bed-time and up to no good, I’m sure.”
Great addition to the story. As always, I can't wait for more. Have fun on your one-ey-moon (sp).
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